I visited Sefton Park early this morning together with twelve day old Connor (my new addition to the family) on his first ever birdwatch!
In the dell plenty of small birds could be seen and heard, with over thirty Long Tailed Tits amongst other Tit species, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, 3 Goldcrests, Nuthatch, and a female Blackcap could all be seen. On the feeders behind the Palm House 5 Stock Dove and a Great Spotted Woodpecker, and a female Sparrowhawk zooming through livened things up a bit. On the main lake it was very easy to see what was around as only the extreme ends of the lake are ice free! 10 Little Grebes, 7 Tufted Duck, 17 Mute Swans, 75+ Coot, Goldfinches on the Alders near the island, Grey Heron, with the female Mandarin returning again. On the ice a large flock of mixed Gulls could be seen; with Common Gulls of varying degrees of plumage detail showing how diverse this species is: some having yellow legs and bills and light streaking on the head, and the other end of the spectrum some showing grey-blue legs and bills and very heavy streaking on the head. At least 500 Gulls where on the lake around 9:30am with nearly all of them moving off shortly after. Whilst walking past the main island the alarm calls of Blue Tits alerted me to a Common Buzzard which flew in very low over the lake in between the island and the Rathbone statue, from the direction of the Palm House and was obviously trying to spook some of the wildfowl, it then landed in trees behind the main path, after going looking for the bird I spooked it and it flew into the wooded section behind the cave/tunnel.
Waxwings are possible anywhere at the moment with 10 near to Wavertree Technology Park roundabout on Rathbone Road and 50 over the Matalan on Wavertree Road today alone!
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| female Mandarin - Sefton Park, December 2012 |
4 comments:
Great to see you back writing and updating us. We missed your blog updates. Congrats and all that on the new one. We often use your writings to help us find what's going on out there. Thanks for putting me onto the goldcrests, though we found them over by where the peter pan used to be, along with friendly chaffinch, bluetit, nuthatch and great tit. We never saw the mandarin, but found a pochard on the lake along with the tufted ducks and common gulls. Thanks and keep up the great work (when time allows obviously)
Saw the Mandarin today, hanging out with some Mallards, first pond up from the main lake. We wouldn't have seen had you not mentioned it was in the park. A beautiful bird indeed. Loads of little Grebes on the main lake. Great picture.
Thanks for the tips :)
ps mistletoe, look up at the bottom of pennylane, take your missus
Saw the marsh orchid you mentioned in summer over garston way by the shore, lovely.
I saw a bee orchid in toxteth this late summer gone. If its there next year, I'll give you a shout
Just been for a bike ride around the Sefton Park area as it wasn't raining for once!
I checked out the Cotoneaster trees on Aigburth Road by St Margaret's. I've still never seen Waxwings and was living in hope.Still plenty of berries on the trees but apart from a Great Tit and a female Chaffinch the trees were empty of birds.
On Sefton Park's lake the usual array of birds previously mentioned. There was also a male and two female Tufted Duck.I didn't see the Mandarin alas.
I think I would like your blog if I could read it. Sorry but black on dark green is seriously NOT user-friendly! Great photographs though.
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